


Thick ice, thin ice

by caixa



Series: boy from the north country [4]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Carolina Hurricanes, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Male Friendship, Rated T for some swearing and implied sexual content but could go as gen as well I guess, Sequel, Supportive fluff, Therapeutic online gaming, friendship fluff, kalsarikännit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 09:36:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13972278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caixa/pseuds/caixa
Summary: Winter, spring, summer or fallall you have to do is calland I’ll be there, yes, I willyou’ve got a friend(Carole King)--A celebration of friendship, love and sticking together through thick and thin.





	Thick ice, thin ice

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Sinun vuorosi loistaa](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13418517) by [caixa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caixa/pseuds/caixa). 



> This is a fic I wrote a while ago in Finnish. I wanted to roll around in the happy fluff of the universe of the Finnish hockey boys of Jussi at Jussi's, but also write some kind of version of the epic friendship I want to think that Sebastian Aho and Jesse Puljujärvi have.
> 
> boy of the north country is a series that has fics in both English and Finnish. This is a sequel to part 2, Jussi at Jussi's (in the brightness of my night), and a translation of part 7, Sinun vuorosi loistaa.
> 
> Jesse Puljujärvi and Sebastian Aho are actual friends and share years of hockey history; this story is, however, completely my imagination. Some facts behind it are still true: Jesse did move to Oulu to play hockey and lived on his own, and moved around the town on a bike (not uncommon in Oulu, it's a real bicycle town!).
> 
> All errors are mine.

**I**

Finland is a blast of blue and green, even the busiest motorways only a narrow streak of grey until treetops, lakes and sea fill the view before getting blanketed under the white fluffy clouds. The sinking air pressure is not the only reason for a lump that Sebastian feels in his throat as the plane reaches its target height.

He’s leaving one home behind. At the same time he’s leaving behind a wonderful, crazy summer; a summer that shook his life to its foundations and built it up again; a summer of love, friendship, training, longing and love, did he mention love?

The memories that formed that summer are rooted tight to the very land he’s flying away from for almost another year. There they stay, beneath the clouds, all the places that felt anew when they experienced them together for the first time. The light of the northern summer night by the calm sea. Fishing trips to the same lake he had been to since childhood.

Excessive amounts of making out because it was so new, intoxicating. Kissing everywhere, in places where it felt so exciting that his lips started to tremble, he had to pause for a moment, stay there, a fraction of an inch from another pair of lips, feeling only the breath touching his mouth, the anticipation like a warm up, like waiting for permission.

He wishes… he could do it right now.

Well, in a way he could. Sebastian glances to the side and a warm breeze sweeps through his heart, melting away the creeping homesickness. Teuvo has the window seat, between Sebastian and the sky, looking pensively out of the small oval window, biting his bottom lip. It’s unlikely he does it on purpose, but it looks so seductive that it’s much more fun to think that he knows exactly what he’s doing, teasing Sebastian from the first minutes of a Trans-Atlantic (read: unbearably long) flight.

Sebastian can live with that. Once they are across the ocean they can catch up any lost time day and night. The whole year, in fact, provided nothing unexpected happens – in the NHL you can never be sure. But that’s something you can influence with your own actions, your own game, Sebastian says to himself, and flashes a smile to his blond co-traveler.

The joy and anticipation make him almost dizzy, and it’s not only because of the thin air up high.

 

**II**

New game jerseys, photos. New practice jerseys, more photos. A makeshift photo studio has been set up inside the arena, and they’re hauled between the camera and the green backdrop many times a day. Gameday suit and tie call for a photo and a video.

They face each other in a lip reading game, headphones muting anything the opponent says. Sebastian giggles at his mistakes and Teuvo rolls his eyes knowingly at the camera.

They haven’t come out to the team yet. It’s a bit like… their relationship wasn’t anybody’s business, not just yet. Like they were inside a thin, fragile bubble that needs to be protected from the winds and dangers of the outside world.

Instead of giving up either of their apartments they have exchanged the spare keys. They have both emptied their luggage into their own closets (to be honest, the clothes end up in the closet only after they have been dug out to wear from the bags and come back from the laundry).

The housing arrangements mean that they trample up and down the stairs between their floors many times a day, because they only need to use one bed at the time. Neither do they really need two fridges, or dining tables – why would either of them want to eat alone?

 

**III**

PlayStation – well, that’s a different story.

Teuvo learns it soon enough.

One day they come home their separate routes. Teuvo has a massage appointment and some clothes shopping to do.

When he comes home he finds his apartment empty and heads downstairs.

Sebastian is lounging on the couch and doesn’t even turn his head Teuvo’s way. Getting closer Teuvo realizes why: Sebastian is wearing a gaming headset so it’s unlikely he has even heard the door open. FIFA is playing on the screen although the game situation looks stalled.

Teuvo sneaks in behind the couch and lands his hands cautiously on Sepe’s shoulders. Sebastian flinches like from an electric shock and yelps out loud. He tilts his face slowly upwards. As he sees Teuvo, a faint blush starts slowly tinting his cheeks.

“Jesse! Why didn’t you warn?” Sebastian lashes into the microphone and turns his gaze back to the TV. Teuvo notices that there is a small rectangular window on the bottom corner of the screen. It’s filled with a laughing face: Jesse Puljujärvi guffaws eyes squinted and mouth wide open, swaying from the force of laughter from side to side, occasionally out of the picture.

Sebastian clicks the button on his earphones and Pulju’s laughter fills the room through the speakers.

“You should have seen your face!” he laughs. “Hi, Teukka! How can you date that loser?”

“We’re tied!” Sebastian protests, eyes glaring to match the burning on his cheeks.

“Hi,” Teuvo replies and lifts his hand to a greeting, waving haphazardly towards the picture of Jesse. He knows Sebastian’s TV is actually a large computer screen but it has never occurred to him that it has a webcam and he doesn’t know where it is. “Sorry guys, I didn’t mean to interfere. I thought you were alone,” he says, nudging Sepe’s shoulder with a finger. “Or, you know.” Jesse’s presence in the room raises too many philosophical questions for him to dwell upon after a massage and a shopping trip.

Sebastian puts his hand on his shoulder, gropes Teuvo’s hand in his without looking up from the game and gives it a warm squeeze. “No problem. We were just finishing this.”

“Like fuck we were!” Jesse shouts from the TV. “I was building a great offense! That’s _so_ you, loser!” he points at the camera. “You’re not leaving this at a draw, Sepe.”

Teuvo squeezes Sebastian’s hand, pats him on the other shoulder with his other hand and bows down to peck his cheek.

“Get him,” he says in a lowered voice into Sebastian’s ear. “I’m going upstairs. Come along when you’ve beaten him.”

Sebastian grabs the controller again and brushes Teuvo’s cheek quickly with his own. “See you,” he says.

“Bye Jesse! It was nice to… see you,” Teuvo says and waves his hand at the small shiny dot on the upper frame of the screen – he’s quite certain that has to be the camera.

 

**IV**

It’s a huge, life-changing decision, for the whole family. To turn everything around because the son wants to play hockey, and is so good at it that other people want him to play it, too.

There’s an actual bid war on Jesse Puljujärvi, a 13-year-old schoolboy from Tornio, high up north on the border between Finland and Sweden. A hockey club in Sweden is willing to offer him a contract that would bind him to the town well into the adulthood and the family must really put their heads together, negotiate and decide what they want for Jesse’s future.

At the end, the final choice is easy. The Finnish option, Oulun Kärpät, has always been the favorite team for the whole family, and besides that, they have a lot to offer. Solid organization devoted to player development, money, facilities, all around good resources. Success, too, and who wouldn’t want a part in that?

For Jesse, on the other hand, it’s all about the chance to play hockey, simple as that. It is what he loves: blades flying over the ice, the stick and the puck, the heat of tight situations, the magic of working as a part of a team.

Without his love for hockey Jesse might not even survive the big change. The pressure is enormous, he only gets a hang of how much he has had to handle so young in retrospect. Moving to a big town alone at the age when most kids are still woken up on school mornings by their parents, constantly fighting against being too homesick to sleep properly, adapting to a new team? Not easy.

He is lucky to have hockey. The sport is his rock, the axis that keeps his world upright, spinning the right way.

He is lucky to love hockey the way he does. If it wasn’t the center of his world, he might have never have met another boy who lives and breathes the game.

Sebastian Aho might have remained just another teammate.

 

**V**

“We skate around and try to see each other.” The way Teuvo describes his plays with Sebastian could be mildly described as an understatement. He is not alone: it’s as if the two Canes Finns compete in giving the most modest, most self-deprecating deadpan answers in their interviews.

“It was pretty nice,” Sebastian says after his first goal of the season.

His gaze keeps wandering towards the spot next to him and his whole face lights up – more than ever talking about his own accomplishments – when he’s finally asked about Teuvo.

“Oh, he was on fire tonight,” he beams, eyes darting at the indisputable star of the game.

He stands arms akimbo, clutching the sweaty t-shirt draped around his hips. If he wasn’t physically clinging to something, he might just follow the trail of his eyes and shoot himself to squeeze Teuvo in a smothering hug.

“Peters told me to shoot the puck more and I’ve tried to shoot more. Sometimes you get lucky. I’ve never had this many hats,” Teuvo tells to the cameras, smiling but not much more visibly hyped up after his first NHL hat trick.

 _I got to be a part of it! I got to be a part of it!_ Sebastian repeats in his mind. He can’t think of a greater happiness than to love and work and, yes, _succeed! win!_  together.

It’s one of those magical nights when everything seems crystal clear and possible. They have found their way to the goal together, either of them could shoot, and there is enough of a time frame for that one move of the stick that shifts the puck from Sebastian to Teuvo, who calmly puts it in the net.

And hats fill the air, then the ice.

And Sepe loses his ability to roast Teuvo on camera. There is a time for it, sure, but not tonight.

Tonight they glow.

 

**VI**

The game days come and go as scheduled, but the Jesse—Sepe gaming days appear in their lives chaotically. At least Teuvo thinks so: Sebastian says they have a system that makes perfect sense and gives such a long speech about home and away games, theirs and Jesse’s, travel days, hard and light training days and off days that at some point Teuvo just gives up, ceases to listen, concentrates on watching the movement of Sebastian’s lips and eyebrows instead.

Teuvo has to admit that he seriously thought that the beginning of the regular season would cut down the long-distance online gaming.

It doesn’t, and Teuvo would bite off a piece of his own tongue rather than even hint that it’s not totally up to his boyfriend. Nobody says anything even remotely critical of Sebastian’s friends to his face.

Jesse needs him. He needs something familiar and fun to hold on to when the wings of his NHL dream are once again cut off with an assignment to AHL. Jesse is not crazy about Bakersfield. He wasn’t last season, he isn’t now.

That isn’t something he would say out loud, though. He bites back his disappointment on cameras and talks like a true professional about developing his game and gaining more ice time with the Condors.

Sebastian gets a peek into a different mindset. And exploding round finds yet another target and flaming red splatter fills the screen. “Die motherfucker!” blares from the speakers.

Sebastian puts up a fight, doesn’t hold back or tone down anything. Neither does he suggest changing to something less aggressive or just talking.

There is a time for it, sure, but not today.

 

**VII**

Jesse Puljujärvi might very well hate Sebastian Aho. From the moment the small but seemingly unstoppable _Kärpät_ guy skates against him and scores shitloads of goals Jesse has every reason to dislike him. Despite their difference in size Aho is a bit like his team’s Puljujärvi, if Jesse is quite honest. A tricky opponent.

Jesse might hate him even more when he gets a glimpse of him off the ice and starts connecting the dots. Dad in fucking club management. The son of a bitch wouldn’t even have to know how to skate to get ice time. His clothes look like his mom does nothing but run around brand stores to show off the little family jewel as polished as possible. A quiet guy but always surrounded by a circle of friends; smiles often but it’s quite selective, the smile fades just as easily and the pointy little face goes into an alert, cautious surveillance mode, almost alarmingly focused.

In principle Jesse has every reason to hate the little boy Aho – that’s how he secretly calls him, even though Sebastian is a year older from him – but in practice… well.

First of all, Jesse Puljujärvi doesn’t _hate_ people on principle.

Second, once they become teammates, Sebastian makes himself absolutely impossible to hate.

Maybe Harri Aho has told his son to be nice to the newcomer and see that he feels welcome. Maybe he has given a long speech about how hard it is to move to a new town all alone at 13, even if the club does its best to help everyday life run as smoothly as possible. Maybe he has also reminded that hockey is a team sport, and the new guy is not a rival but a teammate who has been arranged to join Kärpät to help them, not only his current youth team but the whole club, for years to come.

Or maybe nobody has needed to tell it to Sebastian: he has figured it out for himself. He is a really cool guy: he is _nice_ , and he is also _good_ , good enough to appreciate someone who reaches his level, offers some solid competition as well as cooperation on the ice.

That’s how it takes flight. They both enjoy having an equal match, someone as passionate about the game, always ready to try out new plays and practice them endlessly, let their blades slice the ice when the others are already gathering their stuff to go home.

That’s what sparks it, and the fun they have in the locker room, and the way they never have to sit alone in the bus to away games or training camps.

The more years pass, the more difficult it gets to differentiate the roles of hockey, Kärpät and Sebastian in Jesse’s life. Mostly he’s just aware of how entangled they are and thanks his luck that they are.

Little by little they are becoming stars. They pass to each other, score goals in turns, with speed and skill that seem intuitive. It has the kind of inner force that draws the eyes of the spectator to them. Their play together possesses the kind of magic that makes heart beat faster for a moment, like the excitement of watching the game struck a little bit deeper than usual.

 

**VIII**

Teuvo turns his key in the lock and the door opens to another reality. Finnish music booms in the room and Sebastian is lounging on the couch in a t-shirt and boxer briefs. A malty smell lingers in the air of his apartment.

Teuvo glances reflexively at the TV screen to see what game is going on this time but it’s not filled with football or warfare but half of Jesse Puljujärvi’s head. The other half is hidden behind the shiny bottom of an aluminum can.

Pulju puts the can down after a long gulp – it appears to be beer – and grins.

“Your man is home and you won’t even say hi!” he exclaims over the blasting music.

Teuvo has approached the couch in unintendedly silent steps that haven’t provoked Sebastian to turn his way.

Now he does, or more precisely, arches his neck over the armrest, tilting his face all the way until he looks at Teuvo upside down, a bottle of beer in his hand and a few more on the coffee table.

“Cheers babe!” he grins.

“Hello to you too,” Teuvo replies in a flat, unimpressed tone.

Jesse bursts out in laughter on the screen and Sebastian sits upright, putting his feet up on the table.

“Pulju was bored,” he says like it should explain everything and gestures towards the TV with his bottle, causing the drink to foam up to its neck and almost spill. “We decided to follow a Finnish tradition. _Kalsarikännit_. Getting drunk on the couch at home and listening to all the pathetic old rock songs we can find. Pants optional.”

The song ends and another one starts, this one slow, in minor key, melancholic words of childhood, loss, mist and memories.

Jesse’s usual happy smile starts to fade out of his face. He sniffles, wipes is eyes, looks to the side and up. “Hell no,” he mumbles, leans his elbow to his knee, presses his face to his palm, fingertips on tightly shut eyelids.

“Jesse,” Sebastian says softly. He rolls down on the floor from the couch, walks on his knees to the TV set and sits down on his knees as close to it as he gets. He extends his hand, not giving a shit on how ridiculous his gesture looks, and puts his open hand on the screen. “Don’t give up. You’ll play against us, this same season. Just work your ass off down there, you hear me. They will need you sooner than you think.”

Jesse lifts his head on the screen and nods at first, but soon he starts searching for Sebastian with his gaze, looking confused. One side of his face, all the way from the corner of his mouth up to his forehead, rises questioningly.

He starts to laugh, still wiping his eyes.

“Oh Seppo,“ he says, fighting guffaws of laughter and lifts his hand towards the camera until it covers over half of the view. His teary, smiling face peeks from between the spread fingers. “I miss you too, but if I try to hug that camera, you won’t see anything.”

Sebastian lets his hand slide down from the screen, embarrassed, but one look at Jesse makes him giggle. He lifts his hand towards his own camera for a moment, but laughter shakes him so hard already that he can’t hold his arm upright.

The next moment sees a hockey boy rolling on the floor laughing on both ends of the internet connection.

Teuvo looks at them, hands on his hips, purses his lips to withhold a smile, shaking his head slowly and rolls his eyes.

“Is this some arctic madness I just can’t understand?” he asks.

 

**IX**

Sebastian is not only _nice_ and _good_. Sometimes he is, Jesse thinks, also _sweet_ and _lovely_.

_Sepe is super sweet, as lovely as a girl._

Jesse remembers the night the thought formed in his head, crystallized in those words he never said out loud.

It was an away game trip during one of their early junior years, one of those shitty moments in life that can’t be described as anything else than a series of consecutive disasters.

Every detail was scheduled wrong. First their bus speeded like hell and they had to run from place to place because they were told they were late, only to sit around and wait. They had players out sick, and just as it looked like they’d still manage to tie the game and even possibly grind out a win, the ref disallowed Jesse’s goal and everything went to waste.

On top of that, Jesse’s dad had worked double shifts at work for past two weeks and he hadn’t seen him or mom for a long time. Jesse’s mom was supposed to come watch the game that night, but his little sister had begun to throw up and mom had had to cancel.

Sepe knew how he felt, saw it without Jesse having to say a word.

In the locker room, after haphazard ice-cold showers (nothing worked, see) and getting dressed Sepe sat down next to him on the wooden bench, draped his arm across his back, squeezed him silently, rocked them from side to side.

 

Jesse fell asleep in the window seat on the bus, felt Sepe’s eyes on him through dozing off, watchful, guarding.

He woke up in darkness, probably due to the lack of movement and spotted gas station lights outside the window. The team had stopped for a late night snack and left the bus empty apart from him and Sebastian.

Jesse sat up and tried to smile but a wave of loneliness, disappointment and accumulated fatigue washed over him. He felt his face frown and tears well in his eyes.

Sebastian rose up from his seat and took his hand. “Jesse”, he said softly and sat down on his lap. He wrapped his arms around his neck, said nothing, just sat there, hugging him warm and tight.

 

The bus left them on the practice rink parking lot. Sebastian’s mom had come to fetch him; their car was purring low on the black tarmac under the night sky.

“Pulju comes along. Drop him off first,” Sebastian said to his mom through the passenger side door she had opened for his son. “Come,” he said to Jesse and nodded towards the car.

Jesse hadn’t expected to be offered a ride at all but the surprise was pleasant. He didn’t miss the bicycle he had left around the corner of the rink one bit.

Sebastian guided them both to the back seat. Jesse felt like closing his eyes in the warm car but he knew he shouldn’t, his apartment wasn’t that far.

He pictured the gloomy staircase, fluorescent lamps flickering, footsteps echoing eerily from concrete walls.

“You could come home with us for tonight,” Sebastian said just as his mom was about to pull over at Jesse’s. “Jesse can come for a sleepover, right? Mom?” he asked.

“Of course,” she answered softly.

Jesse hesitated. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll come to your place then,” Sebastian said solemnly. His eyes twinkled determined and dark in the murky air, almost like black pearls.

“I don’t have anything with me. We weren’t supposed to stay overnight.”

“Go fetch them. I’ll come with you.”

Footsteps from two pairs of feet didn’t echo all that eerily in the stairway, and Jesse didn’t think he needed to grab more than spare underwear and a toothbrush to be ready to go.

“It’s schoolnight. Take your backpack and books,” Sepe reminded him.

Jesse hadn’t given the slightest thought to school; It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d stroll to the classroom with barely half the stuff needed for the day and handle the teacher with an unabashed smile and wholesome apologies.

 

Leena had made a bed for Jesse while the boys had taken showers – warm this time, heavenly after the long day.

A foam mattress folded out of the convertible chair in Sebastian’s room was not the most comfortable bed and it wasn’t very spacious either – when Jesse leaned his elbow to the pillow, his toes hung down on the floor.

Sepe pointed at them and chuckled. “Get up here,” he said and backed off to the wall side of his bed, making room on the other side.

They should have been sleeping already but they lounged side by side, looking at the roof and chatting in lowered voices, wallowing in self-pitying recap of the night’s game, over-exaggerating the locker room flu that had swept their teammates off their feet and the complete blindness of the ref, until they both giggled.

The laughter faded into yawns. Sebastian turned to his side and watched Jesse’s face until Jesse noticed it and looked back.

“You’re the best player transferred to us from elsewhere that I can remember, Jesse. It’s great to have you,” he said, face very serious, hands folded under his cheek on the pillow.

Jesse smiled. It was the first time Sebastian had said it straight out to him.

“I like it here, too.”

Sepe squinted, turned to his belly, spread his elbows to the sides and nudged Jesse’s shin with his toes.

“Hop off. Go to sleep,” he said.

The foam mattress on Sebastian’s floor was not the most comfortable bed but Jesse slept his night better than in ages.

 

**X**

Jesse hasn’t really been on his PlayStation since Edmonton called him up again and Sebastian hasn’t expressed missing it. He and Teuvo have ways to spend their free time, thank you very much, details keep them smiling long into the next day and make them steal glances at each other in the locker room.

But one Sunday, after a while, the time is right. In a way, Sebastian and Jesse have the same feeling of being able to exhale, to see the horizon instead of a jarring mist of uncertainty. It might be nice to gather together, hang out, check out how everyone is doing.

It’s easiest to start asking from the nearest one.

“You should join, too,” Sebastian says to Teuvo, and he carries his TV and PlayStation to Sebastian’s living room. It’s a bit unfair to the others, of course – they can only take part online.

 

Patrik beats everyone, Sebastian glares all around and protests loudly, Jesse laughs at his tantrums so hard he nearly slides off the couch. Teuvo smirks and can hardly hide the anticipation in his eyes, because riled up Sebastian is a fireball in bed.

They ramble about nothing and everything, just for the comfort of letting their words and silences flow, not watching constantly if what comes out of the mouth makes sense because sometimes it doesn’t even have to. For a long time nobody even glances at the watch for time, but that hour comes eventually.

Pate is the first. “I guess I should crash. Game day tomorrow.”

The others don’t disagree.

“’Twas fun. Good night,” Jesse says and cuts off the connection.

Teuvo takes Sebastian’s game controller out of his hands and turns off his devices, then does the same with his own. He draws the younger player close – Sebastian is a tiny bit bigger than him but still wants occasionally be the one who gets to curl to Teuvo’s side, under his arm – and brushes his hand slowly through his hair.

“Can we stay here overnight? I’d hate to drag my shit up the stairs,” he says.

Sebastian worries his sleeve. “Okay,” he mumbles slowly.

Teuvo kisses him on the top of his head, the brown smooth hair smells a bit of sweat but it’s a dear, familiar scent.

“Seppo,” he starts, “Do you think we should reconsider these living arrangements?”

Sebastian tilts his chin upwards, looks at Teuvo almost upside down.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think we could buy a house?” Teuvo asks. “We’d have more room.”

Sebastian knits his brows, not frowning but clearly weighing Teuvo’s words in his mind. “It couldn’t hurt to look around,” he says eventually.

Teuvo’s face lights up in a warm smile. “We could have a dog.”

“Or a cat,” Sebastian suggests.

“Yeah, that,” Teuvo says and purses his lips. “Maybe we need some time to think it through.”

That’s the last thing he says for a while, because Sebastian draws him in a languid, deep kiss.

That is, Teuvo thinks, a pretty good way to start a conversation.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos most welcome, please make my day.
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr, caixxa (main blog, writing, football and miscellaneous bilingual shit) and badhockeymom (well, hockey).


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